1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an intermittent photo-taking device for taking a photograph of a sample in a given intermittent photo-taking condition and a microscope system having the photo-taking device.
2. Related Background Art
In a microscope system using a microscope and a digital camera, there has been proposed an intermittent photo-taking device for a microscope that takes and stores photographs of a certain position of a sample such as a cultured cell with a given time lapse controlled by a computer or the like to record the state transformations of the cultured cell, and then continuously reproduces images for observations (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-86615).
In an intermittent photo-taking of a cultured cell or the like, it becomes more frequent that an experiment requires an intermittent photo-taking period from several days to several weeks with a time lapse in units of hours. Accordingly, since the experiment takes a long period of time, you may want to confirm and record the state of the sample on the way of the intermittent photo-taking operation. However, in a conventional intermittent photo-taking device, in order to observe and record the sample after starting the intermittent photo-taking process, you have to stop the process at that point and restart the intermittent photo-taking process after setting photo-taking conditions again.